How to Write Effective Emails
To write emails that get opened and responded to, you must keep to these important basics:
• “From” line – show clearly who you are (preferably your personal name, not your business name), or the receiver may think your email’s spam and delete it.
• Subject line – the most important part of the email (like the teaser on an envelope, or a sales letter headline).
To avoid the spam filters, leave out the following from your email subject lines:
$, £
!
words in ALL CAPS
sale
new
investment
power
powerful
maximize
profit
money
extra income
opportunity
special
buy
Okay, what should you include in your email subject lines?
Curiosity subject lines work best. Something like “John, this idea might …”
Inserting the person’s first name in the subject line also helps to get your email opened.
Also, leaving the sentence unfinished (ending with an ellipsis) creates emotional tension, as the recipient has to open the email to discover what it’s about.
And the word “this” in the subject line also helps to get your emails opened.
• Short – people have little time to read their barrage of emails. So keep yours to around 450 words max – or it may be deleted unread.
• “Inverted pyramid” – state your most important points at the beginning, less important further down.
• Line length – keep to around 65 characters (including spaces).
• Scannable – use subheads, bullet lists, white space etc. to break the text up.
• Good layout – use lines of asterisks, lines of equals signs etc. to set off headings or displayed text, to make your emails more appealing and more readable.
• Use short words, a variety of short and longer sentences, and short paras (see the classic W. Strunk, Jr, and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, for pointers to good, punchy writing).
© 2006 Eldo Barkhuizen BA, HDE